Reflection on the pandemic: questions about the authorities' response.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120428188#Comment_120428188

Very easy to throw out lines like 'hysteria' and 'fear', not so easy to explain how the public health campaign could have been conducted otherwise.

Is there not an element of 'fear' in public health campaigns about STDs? Drink driving? The risks of smoking?

When does it become 'ruling by fear' and 'hysteria'?

His form of 'dissent' was rightly not tolerated in terms of being compatible with his role. That doesn't prove there was intolerance for any form of dissent.

So no, I don't think he is right at all.

bucketybuck

Of course you don't. You don't want to.

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120427930#Comment_120427930

True and shows how much of a backbone some of the civil servants had. The stuff they oked like the 'max 15 outdoors only in October 2020', 8pm closing time in Dec 2021 and other nonsensical ideas

A few of them maybe involved in the trade too which is even more baffling

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120428315#Comment_120428315

A lot of them seemed happy to take an extended holiday. At least over in the UK they tried to keep things ticking over.

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120428433#Comment_120428433

Yep I think the UKs response was brilliant in terms of reopening but a lot of negative stuff has since come out about it

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120428695#Comment_120428695

I would not call it brilliant (especially all the corruption) but at least there was some understanding of the needs for people to get on with their lives.

walus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120428695#Comment_120428695

There is more and more info on strategies that were use by ‘nudge units’ working on making sure that the vaccines were promoted with the right type of messaging. One of the more popular work purposefully adopted by many such ‘nudge units’ who structured the messaging used in the media and by some talking heads throughout the pandemic:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8531257/

Table 1 is particularly interesting, outlines those Treatment Arms that were proven by the study to be particularly effective in driving compliance i.e. community interest, community interest + embarrassment, not bravery, trust the science, personal freedom. Experiments were conducted ahead of the deployment of the vaccines, and the messaging was created around those most impactful treatment arms.

If any of this rings a bell, you know where it came from and what it was aimed to achieve.

PTH2009

Can't say I'm a fan of that new HSE ad telling older people 'it's ok now' to go and live your life

Beasty

Don't Chute! threadbanned

walus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120432878#Comment_120432878

They need to do more studies on how to reverse the effects of ‘nudging’. Can’t see this as being of interest to any particular industry this time round though.

Spudman_20000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120426922#Comment_120426922

Sums up this country that a highly regarded physician like Dr Feeley was forced to resign while the likes of Holohan was awarded doctorates, freedom of the city and had murals painted of him.

Time has shown Dr Feeley to be completely correct, as evidenced by the on-going non-Covid excess deaths in Ireland and throughout Europe, along with the immeasurable impact on children's education and people's livelihoods. 

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120434043#Comment_120434043

Feeley's comments in the context of an infectious disease made no sense.

And time has shown no such thing. There is considerable debate about the extent of the excess deaths when age adjusted, and other factors in play such as heatwaves, aging population, and long covid - which is something else Feeley conveniently ignores.

In Scotland excess deaths when adjusted for demographics changes are returning to or below previous years.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2023/excess-deaths-in-february-at-lowest-level-for-a-year

Not sure how you think children's education could have been maintained in any other way, with teachers falling ill and the risk of them passing on a disease potentially deadly to their parents and carers and teachers.

If you think those things are 'immeasurable', then the same must apply in spades for the consequences of Europe not applying restrictions etc etc. Which completely undercuts therefore your entire argument.

Royale with Cheese

Why am I not surprised that Tony Holohan is bringing out a fúcking memoir 😒

I'm sure a large cohort of the population will lap it up. A nice stocking filler this Christmas for your granny that hasn't left her house since 2019.

shesty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120428239#Comment_120428239

There was a serious lack of measured debate - any form of any debate for the guts of 12 months.

It was my way or the highway with pretty much the only voice being Tony Holohan's, replaced by Ronan Glynn for brief periods.

Every single news and media outlet carried multiple covid stories, daily, 24/7.When they realised that people were switching to Spotify and similar to avoid the constant barrage of health-related ads and news bulletins, they paid for an ad campaign to be run on Spotify about covid.

This wall of yes, fear, only began to be broached around the time that a link was made with blood clots and Astra Zeneca vaccines, when the over 60s were targets for those first vaccines (and to cut off rows, I am not anti-vaccine and nor do I believe the blood clots were something everyone developed).It was only then, a good 12 months in, that I saw people around me - particularly in my parents generation - start saying "hang on a sec.What is going on here.", and the public discourse became more questioning.

There is zero comparison to be drawn between public health campaigns about alcohol, smoking and drink driving vs what happened during covid.The intensity of the covid public health campaign was multiple times over and above any other public health campaign and invaded every part of every single person's life.

Feeney may not be correct in his somewhat blase risk assessment of how covid affected people depending on age, but he is spot on in his comments about how the Government behaved, how the media was managed and what they asked of people over such a long period.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120432878#Comment_120432878

In fairness, they created the problem, its perhaps only right that they do something about it.

They should be a bit more honest about it though. "We are sorry we fucked up so many lives due to our campaign of fear, we were just caught up in the moment and didn't think through the consequences. Please don't die alone in your homes just because of what we said".

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120434990#Comment_120434990

Feeney seems to think the disparate age impact was a game changer, but that's not the point. It was only one piece of the equation.

What Feeney really gets wrong, is that he talked only of the direct risk of covid to someone by age but conveniently leaves out that people not at high risk from covid can spread it to those who are. Well if you don't think through the implications of that of course you will not understand why the restrictions were necessary. That is the risk assessment he is not correct on, just how infectious covid is, and the implications of that.

Is an element of 'fear', for want of a better word, part of public health campaigns against smoking? Drink driving? STDs? Yes or no?

So yes, there is a comparison to be drawn when that word in particular is used.

Was the intensity greater, yes. But that is only to be expected given a global pandemic of a highly infectious disease and is reflected in the response of every major health authority in the world to the risk covid posed to public health systems.

As it is to be expected there would be huge coverage of it in the media. And given 21st century media there would be overload of coverage.

And yes, as part of public health campaigns, ads are placed eg in other media such as Spotify etc etc

In terms of impact on people, as it noted in the article the very real images from Italy had a huge impact. As much if not more so than anything that came later via intentional health campaigns.

From early in the pandemic the HSE messaging was that the vast majority of cases would be mild, which does not strike me as the mantra of someone trying to spread hysteria.

Was there a measured debate in England? France? Germany? What does that mean in practice?

What's the difference in Ireland? The difference here is that we didn't have the wiggle room with regard to hospital and ICU capacity. That's why NPHET's 'abundance of caution' seemed to dictate to the government more than authorities did in other countries. If you look back at threads you will see posts from me arguing eg to stick with Level 3 in autumn 2020 for longer instead of lockdown, and good points made on this forum that we should have opened up more outdoors for summer in 2020. I don't think any 'debate' would have changed what happened in practice, because it would have come back to the parlous state of our health service and no one wanting to take a calculated risk with it.

So I'm not saying we got everything right, but I understand why things were done the way they were.

hotmail.com

The lockdowns have created an even larger weed generation.

This is just my observation but weed usage has gone up considerably since 2019. Instead of drinking, a lot of young men addicted to weed now.

political analyst

During the first lockdown, health authorities throughout the world were skeptical about the use of masks. What changed their minds?

CalamariFritti

Masks were entirely a political decision IMO. A show of 'this is serious' and we all be better taking it seriously. Political theatre. And a bit of a show of power.

Once the big ones like USA and the big EU nations went that way it was the done thing. Everybody else just had to follow or would end up before the international court of media condemnation.

Next it turned into yet another blue vs red battleground that we seem to be hell bend on copying from the states where facts are secondary one way or the other and being on the 'right side' is everything. You could see it all over social media including here.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120437231#Comment_120437231

Think the deciding factor was simply lack of supply.

live4tkd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120437231#Comment_120437231

I would add to as was said earlier that the authorities felt that the ordinary joe soap would not wear masks correctly. I have no doubt they work when used properly following proper medical protocols like the medical professionals however ordinary joe soaps like myself would not use them correctly, ok we know how to put them on but repeated handling, using cloth masks, even though if handled you are supposed to replace it makes it a logistical nightmare for those outside medical settings thus negating the effects.

To get accurate results would need trials with proper wearing of masks of the right type. I wore masks but hated them.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120443012#Comment_120443012

In the early stages the consideration re: masks was for direct protection, and use of masks for direct protection those caveats apply. That was reinforced by lack of supply, and early misinformation from China that spread was primarily by touch transfer (fomite) instead of respiratory.

What changed was more masks, more understanding that it spread primarily by respiratory droplets and a mental shift to thinking about masks for the general public to contain infectious droplets from an infected person - rather than directly protect the wearer.

All of this has been discussed in detail on the masks thread, so don't want to go into any more detail here.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120443033#Comment_120443033

Surely, people didn't believe that the virus could go through the skin, did they? The virus that caused the 2002 SARS outbreak (and I know that Covid is, technically, a form of SARS) was also a coronavirus and health authorities must have known how that was contracted and so it ought to have stood to reason that they would know that all coronviruses were transmissible in the same way, albeit with each coronavirus having a different level of contagiousness. Therefore, health authorities in democratic countries ought to have taken the Chinese government's statements with a pinch of salt.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120443752#Comment_120443752

Not through skin, I think more like ebola or norovirus, spread by fomite transmission primarily.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120443770#Comment_120443770

I had never heard of a fomite until now. I'm posting this Wikipedia article here for everyone else's benefit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomite

72sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120434990#Comment_120434990

100% agree. I also maintain that the IT Health Editor's insistence on giving Dr Feeley a good kicking in that recent article amounts to an admission of guilt. Shameful "journalism".

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120420986#Comment_120420986

Nurses are amateurs now!!

Brilliant stuff

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120453533#Comment_120453533

Nope. "Dr." (nurses don't get the title) John was (he's retired) not a bad nurse, but how he has acted on YouTube has had issues. I don't think he is as bad as @Beasty portrays him but I am not a mod who would have extra info.

Cluedo Monopoly

There was a consultant on the radio yesterday talking about masks. He was asked was he seeing much Covid in hospitals and he said very little and then said that he hardly hears anyone mention the word Covid now, that people want to forget about it.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120449148#Comment_120449148

How does that article in which you incorrectly say he was given a " good kicking " amount to either an "admission of guilt" ( ?) or " shameful journalism " ?

Please explain because all I read in that piece was a man ( yes I know he is a surgeon but still in this regard an ignorant man ) making ill judged and unscientific comments , straight out of a playbook used by some very unscrupulous individuals , which is a bit of a joke frankly when he is accusing others of not following the science , and a journalist who is trying to present the mainstream , but in this case alternative view, for some balance.

It beggars belief that a doctor would think that letting a new and potentially severe infection RIP without vaccine or treatment , would somehow be ok for young and old. It was pretty obvious to most people that not only was he very out of date as regards infection control but aggressively and dangerously ignorant . He was and is an embarrassment, espousing failed herd immunity narrative when a lot of his, mainly old , patients would have been dead if he had been allowed to carry on regardless.

I have nursed some very sick younger people from Covid , some of whom took months to recover , and while they had no underlying conditions prior to infection , they had a raft of them afterwards. So the spiel about young being alright is just that , bs . Many have recovered now but some have now been diagnosed with vulnerability and underlying conditions that they never knew they had before.

There were other media sources who were completely unbalanced and generated fear in their reporting on both sides , RTE.. Clare Byrne was dreadful , and Gript on the other side equally appalling.

IT was balanced throughout and made some attempt at reporting and interpreting what was going on , without just regurgitating NPHETs words .

It was difficult because, let's face it, for quite a while there was no other Irish news happening except for Covid and largely through daily numbers updates from HSE, DoH and NPHET , so not a lot of deviation possible from that, except to outright deny facts and figures being reproduced. I do remember the likes of Paul Cullen who you are slating , asking very pointed questions in the briefings for instance , questions that many here were asking , and I respect him for that .

@shesty As regards fear ..

There was fear prior to vaccination , very much so and those early variants were nasty and killed people , a fact which some, it would seem , would like to wipe from memory. Maybe it's not in their own memory, but it is in mine and many others . So it was genuine urgency from public health to get whatever the message was across by any means. The fact that the message was frequently not bang on the money in the beginning is really a pointless argument , knowledge in hindsight while valuable, is in short supply when you are in the midst of it and those emergency methods tried and tested previously are what is used until you can gain insight in real time .

We all know , now ..

It is unfortunate that people like Clare Byrne made her entire career out of every silly little thing Covid and that TH was so much to the fore behaving like he was making all the decisions, and being the boss , but the plain fact is our creaky health service would have been utterly overrun and swamped if restrictive actions were not taken . Especially in that first 18 months. As it was it was pushed to the limit.

This is known and accepted now , whether we like the way it happened or not.

You only have to look at the disaster that was the last six months with Covid , flu and RSV to see that if Covid was allowed RIP in the early days , we could not have coped and people would have been traumatised in a whole other way .

I have discussed this before on this thread with some who deny the seriousness of the illness prior to vaccination / immunity / less severe variants ( not you ) Also denying deaths numbers , and the positive effects of vaccinations . And some are still trying , unsuccessfully for the most part , to argue that vaccinations are killing people now , when all the data so far shows very small numbers of deaths from vaccines .

Lets talk about that fear although very much not real , being spread by some ..or is it just MSM that gets the flak ?

I remember when warnings about AstraZeneca were put out there with restrictions on the age groups it could be given to, saying it should be removed from the rollout completely and being called all sorts , because people wanted their shots , and wanted them NOW !

Likewise discussing early on in the vaccine rollout that new variants were appearing more dangerous than before ( Delta from India at the time ) or that they were probably likely to mutate to evade the vaccines, I was savaged . This was not scare tactics just honest discussion on this forum about a subject of which I had knowledge .

It was pretty difficult to get a clear message about what was happening and not to scare people . It was a scary subject to be fair , for most people .

I know you know how variable even the milder Omicron infection can be from other discussions we gave had . Some relatively young people were hit harder than expected not with the infection but the after effects . Thankfully that seems to be less and less of a problem .

I think we are all going through the post traumatic stress of the last few years in different ways trying to rationalise what we did , how we reacted , what we had to cope with day to day , all at different levels and different kinds of PTSD.

Some respond by denying , others by minimising , others by continuing to try to learn more about it , others by blocking all the bad stuff .

Most of us will get over it and have done already, but it won't be forgotten by any of us who were working in hospitals in that first year .

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/working-during-covid-was-a-scary-time-we-havent-forgotten-any-of-it-the-fear-was-real-42329074.html

So yes to summarise , the media WAS used to get the message out there . That would be standard practice the world over . Some journos were responsible and made sure they reported the facts and not sensationalist rubbish , others were only out for clicks and money and gain at any cost . Unfortunately that's the same as every other news day .

What do people expect , that a leaflet in the door and weekly numbers in the news , as with other less dangerous public health campaigns , like flu , would have prevented the vast majority from going out and mixing as normal in a pandemic of proportions never seen in our lifetimes ? Not a chance ...usual campaigns eg flu , only reach on average 30% of the targeted population normally .

This was a major emergency and a real case of life, if the message got across , or death for many if it didn't in the early months . It was not only urgent but essential to use any and all means to get the message across , painful as that may be .

I don't blame the media by and large for that as the DoH and the HSE used them , but some really ran with it for far too long .

Hopefully we won't see the like again .

Whether another pandemic would generate similar media coverage though , probably . That's how they make their money isn't it ?